


Here Be Writers

by bluebeholder



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, M/M, Meet-Cute, Secret Agent Graves, Writer Credence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 10:06:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18008909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: Credence Barebone, author, and Percival Graves, secret agent, should never have crossed paths. But at Kowalski's Bakery and Coffeeshop, they do just that.What results is something of a fairy tale.





	Here Be Writers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [obscuring](https://archiveofourown.org/users/obscuring/gifts).



> Happy birthday, friend!

It’s an average day at Kowalski’s Bakery and Coffeeshop. Behind the counter, Newt and Queenie are going about their barista duties, Tina is manning the register, and Jacob is in the back making sure that baked goods keep on coming. Credence sits and watches the buzz of activity over his laptop, trying desperately to ignore the blank page in front of him.

“The sky is blue, readers read,” Credence mutters, glancing down at the blinking cursor. “Most importantly, writers write.”

It’s a proverb he read somewhere a long time ago, but just now he’s beginning to feel as if the sky is green and there are no readers anywhere in the world. This cozy corner table, which very firmly belongs to him and is as homely as his closet-sized apartment, is starting to feel more like a jail cell than anything else. Credence rarely struggles to find inspiration; words usually pour out of him unstoppably. But right now they’re so stubborn it’s as if they don’t exist at all.

He’s about ready to throw in the towel for the day when he happens to glance up at the line.

The most handsome man he’s ever seen is standing in the line.

Credence is hard-pressed not to just let his mouth hang open. The man’s tall, dressed in a crisp suit with a blue scarf against the late-spring chill outside, dark hair slicked back, keen eyes flicking over the whole coffeeshop. His eyes pass over Credence and Credence ducks down behind his laptop, trying to hide from that very piercing gaze.

He’s never seen this man before, but good _Lord,_ Credence could look at him all day.

When he cautiously peeks over the laptop again, the man is looking down at the phone in his hand, scowling a bit. There’s something distinctly Byronic about that profile, something tragically heroic. It might not even be Byronic, it feels more _Arthurian,_ a Lancelot or even a Mordred—

—his fingers, almost of their own accord, start moving over the keyboard. Credence watches as a description of the man appears, re-dressing him in the outfit of a traveling knight-errant, and transforming the coffeeshop into a medieval tavern. And just like that, he’s off.

It seems that the mystery man, who’s now leaving the coffeeshop with a black coffee in his hand, is very good for Credence’s inspiration.

 

***

 

The young man in the corner has been watching Graves every single morning.

It’s an intriguing note that adds just a little more to the charming atmosphere at Kowalski’s; Graves is thoroughly pleased with his new discovery. It’s within walking distance of his house and there’s a bus stop nearby, so he can easily leave the bakery and still get to work on time. The baristas are friendly, the coffee is good, and the pastries are to die for. That would have been enough to keep him coming back, but now that young man in the back corner has taken to nearly ogling him every time that he comes in. It’s not threatening, but being watched so intently is a bit concerning for someone in Graves’…position.

So one morning, Graves casually asks Tina at the register about the young man’s name. “Oh, that’s Credence,” she says. “Our resident author.”

“Credence,” Graves says, and nods. Not many names like that out there, and sure as anything, with the detail that he’s a writer, Graves turns him up with a quick search or two. Credence Barebone: the most unassuming author of fantasy novels that anyone has ever met. Primarily a writer of sword-and-sorcery novels, not stupendously popular—but, when Graves reads one, quite good. His urban fantasies—stories of witches, wizards, and magical creatures set in 1920s New York—are significantly more popular, though at present only two are in publication.

It’s comforting to know that he’s not being watched by the minion of some foreign power, and now Graves can get back to looking obliquely at Credence and wondering how appropriate it would be to buy him a coffee.

 

***

 

Credence is making wicked progress on this new story. After overhearing Queenie call out an order for “Graves,” he’d ended up naming his knight Gaheris—preserving both the flavor of the original, and the connection to Lancelot and Mordred that had been the starting point for this whole story. It’s turning out Arthurian anyway, so why not turn this into the story of an obscure knight who nobody remember? Perhaps they will now, at least.

At this point in the tale, Gaheris is seeking to rescue the lady Anghades from her imprisonment by an ancient and evil lich who has awakened and holds a whole kingdom in a vile grip. He acquired, in the way of fantasy tales, a squire named Rhyn in that inn where everything started, and is reluctantly bringing the callow youth along. Of course Credence means for all of this to go horribly wrong. The lady Anghades _is_ the lich, for one thing. But, just now, it’s a standard sort of high-fantasy-le-Morte-de-Arthur-Idylls-of-the-King kind of story.

Really, the thing that’s going to be hard to get past is the fact that Credence is letting Rhyn end up with Gaheris. It’s unconventional, but the _chemistry_ between them is unbelievable! Valiant, honorable Gaheris, left lonely by a prophecy of terrible future deeds and a hatred of public speaking—Rhyn, shy and clever, with a definite hero-worship of any Knight of the Round Table—together, they manage to just about make one fully-functioning medieval man.

Credence is knee-deep in description of a sudden attack by brigands when Newt clears his throat next to the table.

“Someone,” he says, plonking a coffee cup down beside Credence, “bought you your usual.”

“Wait, what?” Credence stares at the cup, then up at Newt. “Someone bought me coffee?”

“If you ask me he was too shy to say anything in person!” Tina shouts over the coffee machines.

Newt smiles and shrugs, tucking his hands in his apron pockets. “Anyway, enjoy your coffee,” he says, and darts back over to the counter as the door opens to admit a family of five very noisy people.

Credence stares at the cup some more.

He eventually concludes that he’s living in a fanfiction.

It’s the only explanation for someone buying _him_ a drink.

 

***

 

In a life made approximately 300% of classified information, Graves is infinitely pleased that, apparently, Credence knows his name. “He said to say thank you,” Queenie informs him, the day after he bought the coffee, “and said that you should actually introduce yourself.”

“Can’t,” Graves says, a sudden rush of nervousness flooding through his veins, “but—here, whatever his favorite pastry is and the rest for a tip—”

And he rushes out the door with his coffee before anything else can be said.

The excuse, of course, is that he’s a busy man. Anyone who got remotely close to the truth would believe he worked for the FBI; the job Graves _actually_ does is one much stranger. He’s involved in things that are a lot closer, in pop-culture terms, to a cross between the international crime-fighting ring in _The Man From U.N.C.L.E._ and _The X-Files_. This is why Graves doesn’t have a romantic life. It’s a bit hard to get dates when the answer to “what do you do for a living” is “I oversee international operations involving alien species on earth, but I can’t tell you about that because I would _literally_ have to kill you.” Therefore, Graves has stayed out of the dating life for a long, _long_ time.

To be buying Credence Barebone drinks and pastries, even if they’ve never personally spoken, is a shake-up in his routine that might well give Graves a stroke.

He really, really doesn’t want to stop.

After all. What’s the harm in buying cookies and coffee for an obviously-broke author who needs a little luck in his life? His books are good; Graves has bought all of them by this point and is reading through them one by one. He couldn’t resist a little extra digging, when he caught a mention of “fanfiction” in an interview with Credence in the back of one of his books, and unearthed Credence’s top-secret account on a fanfiction website; turns out the young man writes incredibly good _Harry Potter_ fanfiction, too.

It’s awkward, dangerously close to illegal stalking, and Graves is infinitely uncomfortable with it, but he’s promised himself that this goes no further than a vaguely odd obsession with an author. It’s not like he’s going to go all Annie Wilkes on Credence. This is just eccentricity.

He’s got an alien from the Jupiter’s moon Europa in a containment cell in his basement, for Christ’s sake.

Graves is entitled to eccentricity.

 

***

 

It can only be Mr. Graves. Doesn’t take much deduction, when the purchases only happen on days when the man comes into the coffeeshop. Still, the revelation makes Credence’s heart leap into his throat with excitement.

Credence feels a little bad that he’s managed to turn up Mr. Graves’ LinkedIn page, Facebook, Twitter, and—with some _serious_ snooping—an utterly ancient MySpace profile. It feels vaguely stalker-ish, and so does basing a romantic lead in a book on him, but the man is buying him coffee and pastries and _something_ has to give.

As it turns out, Mr. Graves is a bit of a mystery. The LinkedIn profile stops in 2014, telling his education and past employment and abruptly ending in his current job, not recently updated. His Facebook is completely mundane, apparently used solely for chatting with relatives and geotagging his every visit to a coffeeshop in the city. (Credence starts worrying about the man’s health when he sees the sheer volume of coffee he’s drinking daily.) His Twitter is used strictly for conversation about _Castle Rock, Altered Carbon, Lost in Space, The Haunting of Hill House,_ and _Black Mirror_. And one tweet about his distaste for J. K. Rowling’s _Cursed Child_.

Well, if he’s such a science fiction person, he won’t be reading Credence’s books.

Unfortunate.

But at least they both thought _Cursed Child_ was a mistake.

You could probably build a friendship on that.

 

***

 

And so it goes.

Whenever he can Graves gets his morning at Kowalski’s; inevitably, Credence is in the corner writing. Graves will order him a coffee and then flee the scene. Occasionally he thinks of being brave and going up to Credence to declare himself a fan. It’s inevitable that, in such moments, Graves will realize that his bravery only extends as far as confronting the toothy rage of a titanic beast from the Mu Cephei system armed only with a half-loaded handgun. _Then_ he flees.

Meanwhile Credence is desperately trying to figure out how to get Graves’ full attention, but always ends up hiding behind his laptop instead and pretending not to see the man when he arrives in the morning. He’s thought of leaving a note for Graves at the register, but his gift with words inevitably fails him in such moments. Crushes, it seems, render him as clumsy in speech as his poor protagonist Gaheris (whose quest is going very well, and nearing readiness for publication).

The turning point comes a year and a half after all of this began. Graves returns from a three-month deployment dealing with the discovery of a particularly horrid thing in a crashed ship in Antarctica, and goes back to his local coffeeshop. In his absence, Credence’s book has been accepted for publication, and Jacob has offered to let Credence hold an evening public reading of _The Knight of the Dream Kingdom_ —a promotional event before the book is published.

Advertisements for the reading go up the day that Graves comes back to the coffeeshop.

 

***

 

Credence is undeniably nervous as he sits down on the low stage intended to let the small crowd see him. He’s never done something like this before. He still thinks he’s not popular enough to do something like this, but Queenie had insisted. And if anyone knows how to market, then Instagram-influencer-barista Queenie Goldstein does.

So Jacob found a stage, Tina and Newt put it together, Queenie put the word out on social media and put posters in the windows. Magically, tonight, there’s a small crowd. Perhaps twenty-five people: some regulars of the coffeeshop, some clearly fans with books in their hands, others Credence doesn’t recognize. He looks over the audience, trying to disguise the trembling of his hands, when he spots—

Oh no.

Oh no, no, no.

Percival Graves is sitting in the back, and he has a copy of Credence’s last book on his lap.

 

***

 

Graves is enraptured as Credence reads aloud the first chapter of the book. He has a lovely voice, very expressive, and this new story seems to be of better quality than most of the rest. There is one oddity, though: the circumstances of the first meeting between Rhyn and Gaheris bear an _uncanny_ resemblance to the first day that Graves came to the coffeeshop.

More to the point, Gaheris himself bears an uncanny resemblance to _Graves_.

When the reading is over, there’s a brief question-and-answer session. Most of the questions are banal. Graves ignores them in favor of watching Credence—who is watching him right back. It’s tag played with the eyes, and it makes Graves feel a bit like a teenager again.

He waits for everyone else to clear out, after the Q&A and the inevitable rush of fans looking to have their books signed, to go up himself. He offers his hand, first, and Credence shakes with only a minor tremble of nervousness. “Any resemblance to anyone is unintentional,” he says, preempting whatever Graves was going to try to say.

“I’m pretty sure that’s not true,” Graves says. “Rhyn is pretty clearly based on you, isn’t he?”

Credence laughs, a little color in his cheeks, and it occurs to Graves suddenly that they still haven’t let go of one another’s hands. “Well, yes,” he says. “It’s a bit of a dream romance for me.”

“It would just about be mine, too,” Graves says. “Any chance I could get an extra look at what you have in store for us?”

“I might have an advance copy I could be persuaded to hand over, if I were taken out to dinner first,” Credence says. He’s batting his eyelashes—the outrageous flirt!

It would be a lie to say that Graves wasn’t charmed, because he is. “There’s a German place down the road,” he says. “Meet you there?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Credence says. He winks. “I’ll bring your book with me. Seeing as that’s what you’re here for.”

“No,” Graves says, smiling, “I’m here for you.”


End file.
